Putting SketchUp models on the web – with Sketchfab.com

Although there are ways to get SketchUp models to display on the web (most notably using the 3D Warehouse or VRML if you have SketchUp Pro), none of those technologies are as elegant as using WebGL. This technology needs no plugins and relies only on 3D display capability that is already built into modern browsers.

While the SketchUp folks apparently are also working on a SketchUp web-viewer, the “Pompidou-viewer“, their API documentation is apparently not ready. One service that is available on the web now is Sketchfab.com, a web service that very beautifully displays 3D models and lets viewers navigate around them. Those models can then also be embedded into websites. Because they have an API, I couldn’t resist to put together a plugin for SketchUp that directly uploads models to their website.

For more details and to try this out for yourself, go to the plugin’s download page here: